For a successful, innovative or inspiring campaign that got its message across to its target audience

London's most littered street got cleaner

What was the campaign?

Hubbub Foundation's Neat Streets campaign was a five-month social experiment to tackle littering on Villiers Street, one of central London's busiest and most littered streets. The goal was to explore whether playful interventions and positive messaging could reduce littering and to test the latest thinking on behaviour change and awareness-raising. The project combined a photo gallery of local people, chewing-gum artwork, noise-making bins, a voting "ballot bin", street actors (the "Naked Bin Men") and campaigns targeting chewing gum and cigarette butts.

How was it promoted?

Hubbub created large chewing-gum art displays that encouraged people to use their chewed gum to create art. It used its "ballot bin" to ask smokers to "vote with their cigarette butts" on sporting questions such as "Who is the best football player in the world?" Its Naked Bin Men took to the streets in oversized body suits and swapped people's fast-food packaging for items such as lollypops and flip-flops. Government ministers were sent a letter calling for the creation of a litter advisory committee.

The campaign received coverage in media outlets including the London Evening Standard, the Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, ITV, BBC, The Guardian and The Huffington Post. It was also hugely successful on social media, where photographs of its ballot bin sparked debate and reached more than six million people.

What impact did the campaign have?

Neat Streets led to a 26 per cent decline in the volume of litter within five months. It also inspired similar campaigns in several different parts of the country.

What did the judges say?

Abigail Scott Paul, deputy director of communications at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, described Neat Streets as an "innovative, bespoke, local, creative campaign that tested the water and has influenced other campaigns".

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